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The Black-White Achievement Gap
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this clarion call, Paige, a former secretary of education (2001–2005) and his sister, a noted educator, pursue two threads of thought: the quest for authentic African-American leadership and the black-white achievement gap. Their argument: while racism and discrimination are still barriers to African American progress, they are no longer the primary barriers; and the black-white achievement gap is the primary civil rights issue of our time. The main obstacle to closing that gap is black leadership culture, which they criticize... for its role in the existence, magnitude, and intractability of the black-white achievement gap. Authenticity is defined as activity by individuals or groups, regardless of ethnicity, which, with moral purpose, [that] affects the attitude and behavior of African Americans, through identifying and confronting major barriers to African American achievement. In making their argument, the authors report quantities of confirming data; assess various explanations for the gap; review the place of education in the black experience; find the NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, and Urban League to have overlooked the issue; and predictably argue for the success of No Child Left Behind, the voucher system, and charter schools. Their last chapter, The Way Forward: A Call to Service, concludes with a useful, thought-provoking list of suggestions. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Closing the achievement gap between black and white students on standardized tests would go a long way toward achieving true civil rights, declares former education secretary Paige and his coauthor, educator (and sister) Witty. Citing a wealth of statistics and their own personal experiences, the authors make the case that the gap is real but malleable, and has real-life consequences in everything from income to insurance coverage to the likelihood of incarceration. Detailing historical factors, including slavery and race discrimination, the authors argue that low expectations of black students and negligence on the part of black leaders to this pressing issue are to blame for the dismal achievement gap. They highlight schools that have been able to close the gap, educating black students of low-income families and sending them on to college. They also dissect the political and sociological arguments behind the gap and criticize the African American leadership culture—meaning liberal ideology—that has failed to come to grips with the underlying reasons for the gap and to offer real solutions. Paige and Witty do offer real and practical solutions on every level from individual to organizational in a call to arms to address the issue at the last frontier in the civil-rights struggle. This is a passionate, well-researched look at a troubling—but solvable—social problem. --Vanessa Bush
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By Rick Evans
Format:Kindle Edition
One can certainly agree with Dr. Paige and Dr. Witty that the academic achievement deficit suffered by average African American students relative to their white peers needs to be shrunk and that dealing with this stigmatizing statistic should be a top priority for black political, civil rights and activist organizations. After decades of civil rights progress and in an era when we can have a black president and first family occupying the White House it's fair to say it's time for black people to look beyond racism as a primary factor inhibiting African American progress.
In chapter 2 Paige and Witty do an effective job defining the black-white achievement gap in terms of lower black student reading and math scores at critical school grades and higher school dropout rates. In the chapters that follow the authors urge the reader to embrace a no excuses view that the achievement gap can be overcome if activists and organizations focus on the goal with an all hands on deck coordinated effort. Other than a laundry list of one liners at the end of the book the authors do little to fill in what all hands on deck would mean and where there has been success. The book appears filled with missed opportunities.
As part of their no excuses philosophy Paige and Witty adopt the contemporary view of education reformers that inept parenting cannot be used as an excuse for a child's lagging academic performance. They then seem to contradict themselves when they cite hard working education valuing Vietnamese families as an example one might follow. There's an irony here. A 1992 Scientific American article that discussed what family dynamics explain high achieving southeast Asian students. In the article, which could have used a chapter in the book, several simple culturally independent practices were identified that could be applied by a parent of any means or education level. Of more interest these children of refugees were successful despite attending regular urban public schools. Instead of identifying what could be learned from the experience of these families a single sentence was tossed out as a 'They can do it. Why can't we.' moment.
The Author's allude to the success of KIPP charter schools which have a record of working with and raising the academic performance of economically disadvantaged poor performing students. What is left out is whether the KIPP model is scalable to a city or countywide level. For that matter why haven't all charter schools with their relaxed bureaucracy and flexibility copied and matched the success of the best KIPP schools. At the end of the book the authors mention Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone a program that the Obama administration is hoping to replicate nationally for the very purpose of closing the achievement gap for disadvantaged minority groups. For this reason the Harlem Children's Zone could have used a whole chapter for no reason so that the reader could be made aware of just how much difficult work goes into making this kind of program work. In a recent (6/24/2010) NPR interview Mr. Canada worried that groups scrambling for these federal dollars might be getting over their head.
The authors' swipe at the dysfunctional Washington, D.C. school system (DCPS) was justified but again misleading and incomplete. DCPS has been rife with ineptitude and corruption with poor achievement. The authors cite a statistic that black students suffer a 63% academic achievement deficit relative to their white DCPS peers. Unfortunately, absent context one is left wondering what it means to compare the 4% of DCPS white students to the overwhelming 85% of black DCPS students. How are those white students distributed? Are they concentrated in the good DCPS schools? Or are they randomly distributed throughout the system yet managing to still out perform their black school mates? For that matter while the authors praise former mayor Williams for his "courageous" stance in favor of school vouchers over the objections of democrats they are noticeably silent about what success if any current Mayor Fenty and school chancellor Michelle Rhee are having with the DCPS. Rhee is a Teach For America veteran who shares many of the no excuses, confront the teachers union and the bureaucracy of Rod Paige. After years of school closings, confronting the union and firing staff has she succeeded in closing the black white achievement gap? Nope.
Finally it's disappointing the authors did little to lay out their own track records in closing the black-white achievement gap. Both have decades of experience in education. Rod Paige himself rose to superintendent of the Houston school system. Rod Paige is a harsh critic of teachers unions and school bureaucracies. He's a fan of charter schools, privatization and vouchers. Was Mr. Paige able to close the achievement gap in the Houston Independent Schools while he ran them? Did he leave in place processes that ensured his legacy of success persisted? Accounts of their own success closing the achievement gap could have used their own chapters so that those who wanted to heed their clarion call could learn from the masters.
In chapter 2 Paige and Witty do an effective job defining the black-white achievement gap in terms of lower black student reading and math scores at critical school grades and higher school dropout rates. In the chapters that follow the authors urge the reader to embrace a no excuses view that the achievement gap can be overcome if activists and organizations focus on the goal with an all hands on deck coordinated effort. Other than a laundry list of one liners at the end of the book the authors do little to fill in what all hands on deck would mean and where there has been success. The book appears filled with missed opportunities.
As part of their no excuses philosophy Paige and Witty adopt the contemporary view of education reformers that inept parenting cannot be used as an excuse for a child's lagging academic performance. They then seem to contradict themselves when they cite hard working education valuing Vietnamese families as an example one might follow. There's an irony here. A 1992 Scientific American article that discussed what family dynamics explain high achieving southeast Asian students. In the article, which could have used a chapter in the book, several simple culturally independent practices were identified that could be applied by a parent of any means or education level. Of more interest these children of refugees were successful despite attending regular urban public schools. Instead of identifying what could be learned from the experience of these families a single sentence was tossed out as a 'They can do it. Why can't we.' moment.
The Author's allude to the success of KIPP charter schools which have a record of working with and raising the academic performance of economically disadvantaged poor performing students. What is left out is whether the KIPP model is scalable to a city or countywide level. For that matter why haven't all charter schools with their relaxed bureaucracy and flexibility copied and matched the success of the best KIPP schools. At the end of the book the authors mention Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone a program that the Obama administration is hoping to replicate nationally for the very purpose of closing the achievement gap for disadvantaged minority groups. For this reason the Harlem Children's Zone could have used a whole chapter for no reason so that the reader could be made aware of just how much difficult work goes into making this kind of program work. In a recent (6/24/2010) NPR interview Mr. Canada worried that groups scrambling for these federal dollars might be getting over their head.
The authors' swipe at the dysfunctional Washington, D.C. school system (DCPS) was justified but again misleading and incomplete. DCPS has been rife with ineptitude and corruption with poor achievement. The authors cite a statistic that black students suffer a 63% academic achievement deficit relative to their white DCPS peers. Unfortunately, absent context one is left wondering what it means to compare the 4% of DCPS white students to the overwhelming 85% of black DCPS students. How are those white students distributed? Are they concentrated in the good DCPS schools? Or are they randomly distributed throughout the system yet managing to still out perform their black school mates? For that matter while the authors praise former mayor Williams for his "courageous" stance in favor of school vouchers over the objections of democrats they are noticeably silent about what success if any current Mayor Fenty and school chancellor Michelle Rhee are having with the DCPS. Rhee is a Teach For America veteran who shares many of the no excuses, confront the teachers union and the bureaucracy of Rod Paige. After years of school closings, confronting the union and firing staff has she succeeded in closing the black white achievement gap? Nope.
Finally it's disappointing the authors did little to lay out their own track records in closing the black-white achievement gap. Both have decades of experience in education. Rod Paige himself rose to superintendent of the Houston school system. Rod Paige is a harsh critic of teachers unions and school bureaucracies. He's a fan of charter schools, privatization and vouchers. Was Mr. Paige able to close the achievement gap in the Houston Independent Schools while he ran them? Did he leave in place processes that ensured his legacy of success persisted? Accounts of their own success closing the achievement gap could have used their own chapters so that those who wanted to heed their clarion call could learn from the masters.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Rod Paige, Ph.D., and Elaine Witty, Ph.D., Authors
The Black-White Achievement Gap
Amacon Press, ISBN 978-0-8144-1519-1
Non-Fiction-education, black issues, education reform, standardized testing, leadership
210 pages
January 2010 Review for Bookpleasures.com
Reviewer-Michelle Kaye Malsbury, BSBM, MM
Review
Drs. Paige and Witty [Ph.D]are a brother and sister team who joined hands in writing The Black-White Achievement Gap. Both people are well credentialed and extremely experienced in the fields of education and administration. Dr. Paige was previously the Secretary of Education [2001-2005] under President G.W. Bush. He has been dean of a major Texas university and superintendent of the Houston school system. (2010, inside back cover) Dr. Witty worked as an educator in middle and high school, has been dean at a major university, and head of the educational department at the state university level.
The breadth and depth of their collective experiences, knowledge, and educational endeavors makes the information contained therein even more relevant and urgent to today's society and education as a whole. Both authors offer thoughtful measures and steps in this book that are targeted at closing the educational achievement gap between black and white children. Their [Paige and Witty] sage instructions should be the carried out by every family, religious head, teacher, and counselor across our country, especially in the black communities. Their hopes in writing this book is not merely to raise public awareness to this dire situation, but also a call for immediate action to turn the tables that have previously been responsible for this achievement gap such that we can tighten or diminish the gap, thereby providing a quality education to all of America's children.
The authors state that (2010, p.2) "The average African American public school twelfth grader's performance on academic measures approximates that of the average white eighth grader." That is an alarming statement. In order to begin to change the tide on this procession the authors suggest that [paraphrase] leaders in the African American community need to help ferret out the barriers to this dilemma and begin working on a path forward. (p.8) Paige and Witty believe that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was a wonderful piece of legislation, instituted under President G.W. Bush, that can and will help to close this gap. I remain dubious of the good it [NCLB] has effectuated based on conversations with educators and principals across American who wonder about teaching only for a test v. teaching the basics and building on those requirements for each consecutive grade level (i.e. reading, arithmetic, science, and social studies) on a national scale where each state is teaching from the same set of critical building blocks that can ensure that all of our students are challenged to meet and exceeding their [all parties involved] expectations.
There are many headings in chapters walking back through black history and the history of the United States as it has helped to shape where we are now as a people. These inclusions are meant to help strengthen our understanding that white history differs from black history and perhaps even colors the perception of our black or white members of society today. If we can alleviate some of those biases and remove the barriers from those stigmas we can forge a future, educational speaking, that works for all of our youth and not just some.
"The Black-White Achievement Gap" is jam packed with statistical data on a variety of subjects ranging from mathematical skills at various grade levels to reading and more. (2010, ch.2) There is ancillary data that correlates to wages for achievement of various levels of education or lack thereof, which is the case in dropouts. Statistics are added to depict how education interacts and interrelates with crime and incarceration, especially for blacks. Largely this information is used to bolster their hypothesis that the achievement gap is real, growing, and requires mitigation immediately. It is compelling.
Some of the key things that must be done to reverse this achievement gap deal with communities offering parenting classes and language development training that can teach valuable skills to parents who are disadvantaged socio-economically as oftentimes those households are equally lacking in level of parental education and require training to be up to snuf. (2010, p.61) Paige and Witty say that "Growing up in an environment surrounded by adverse conditions obviously challenges a child's expectations for success." (p.64) So more must be done by our leaders to bring families out of poverty and into productive members of society as that greatly enhances those children's chances for success.
Improving the overall status of families is not the only place where we need to improve according to Paige and Witty. They also believe that the quality of teachers must improve such that they are teaching at higher levels so we can raise the bar where expectations, on both ends, are concerned. (2010, pgs.73-4) If students are challenged to achieve higher standards and the teachers keep raising the bar for what they expect we can make headway toward closing this achievement gap and improving the educational quality for all students. The authors are realistic in their assessment that reversing this problem may take a generation or two, but it is possible if we make a concerted effort to understand the situation in its entirety and allocate the right amount of resources, energy, and time to see it to fruition.
I would highly recommend this book for educators, administrative educational staff, community leaders, boards of education and their members, and anyone else who cares about the education of our future generations.
The Black-White Achievement Gap
Amacon Press, ISBN 978-0-8144-1519-1
Non-Fiction-education, black issues, education reform, standardized testing, leadership
210 pages
January 2010 Review for Bookpleasures.com
Reviewer-Michelle Kaye Malsbury, BSBM, MM
Review
Drs. Paige and Witty [Ph.D]are a brother and sister team who joined hands in writing The Black-White Achievement Gap. Both people are well credentialed and extremely experienced in the fields of education and administration. Dr. Paige was previously the Secretary of Education [2001-2005] under President G.W. Bush. He has been dean of a major Texas university and superintendent of the Houston school system. (2010, inside back cover) Dr. Witty worked as an educator in middle and high school, has been dean at a major university, and head of the educational department at the state university level.
The breadth and depth of their collective experiences, knowledge, and educational endeavors makes the information contained therein even more relevant and urgent to today's society and education as a whole. Both authors offer thoughtful measures and steps in this book that are targeted at closing the educational achievement gap between black and white children. Their [Paige and Witty] sage instructions should be the carried out by every family, religious head, teacher, and counselor across our country, especially in the black communities. Their hopes in writing this book is not merely to raise public awareness to this dire situation, but also a call for immediate action to turn the tables that have previously been responsible for this achievement gap such that we can tighten or diminish the gap, thereby providing a quality education to all of America's children.
The authors state that (2010, p.2) "The average African American public school twelfth grader's performance on academic measures approximates that of the average white eighth grader." That is an alarming statement. In order to begin to change the tide on this procession the authors suggest that [paraphrase] leaders in the African American community need to help ferret out the barriers to this dilemma and begin working on a path forward. (p.8) Paige and Witty believe that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was a wonderful piece of legislation, instituted under President G.W. Bush, that can and will help to close this gap. I remain dubious of the good it [NCLB] has effectuated based on conversations with educators and principals across American who wonder about teaching only for a test v. teaching the basics and building on those requirements for each consecutive grade level (i.e. reading, arithmetic, science, and social studies) on a national scale where each state is teaching from the same set of critical building blocks that can ensure that all of our students are challenged to meet and exceeding their [all parties involved] expectations.
There are many headings in chapters walking back through black history and the history of the United States as it has helped to shape where we are now as a people. These inclusions are meant to help strengthen our understanding that white history differs from black history and perhaps even colors the perception of our black or white members of society today. If we can alleviate some of those biases and remove the barriers from those stigmas we can forge a future, educational speaking, that works for all of our youth and not just some.
"The Black-White Achievement Gap" is jam packed with statistical data on a variety of subjects ranging from mathematical skills at various grade levels to reading and more. (2010, ch.2) There is ancillary data that correlates to wages for achievement of various levels of education or lack thereof, which is the case in dropouts. Statistics are added to depict how education interacts and interrelates with crime and incarceration, especially for blacks. Largely this information is used to bolster their hypothesis that the achievement gap is real, growing, and requires mitigation immediately. It is compelling.
Some of the key things that must be done to reverse this achievement gap deal with communities offering parenting classes and language development training that can teach valuable skills to parents who are disadvantaged socio-economically as oftentimes those households are equally lacking in level of parental education and require training to be up to snuf. (2010, p.61) Paige and Witty say that "Growing up in an environment surrounded by adverse conditions obviously challenges a child's expectations for success." (p.64) So more must be done by our leaders to bring families out of poverty and into productive members of society as that greatly enhances those children's chances for success.
Improving the overall status of families is not the only place where we need to improve according to Paige and Witty. They also believe that the quality of teachers must improve such that they are teaching at higher levels so we can raise the bar where expectations, on both ends, are concerned. (2010, pgs.73-4) If students are challenged to achieve higher standards and the teachers keep raising the bar for what they expect we can make headway toward closing this achievement gap and improving the educational quality for all students. The authors are realistic in their assessment that reversing this problem may take a generation or two, but it is possible if we make a concerted effort to understand the situation in its entirety and allocate the right amount of resources, energy, and time to see it to fruition.
I would highly recommend this book for educators, administrative educational staff, community leaders, boards of education and their members, and anyone else who cares about the education of our future generations.
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I know that Elaine Witty is truly one of the best educators in America. Her suggestions in this book are right on! For once, there is a book that explains how an ongoing tragedy can be identified and modified. This is a book that should be required reading for every teacher education program.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Close the gap!
The question of the achievement gap between black has vexed educators and community leaders for generations. Why, after decades of progress in civil rights, does the gap persist? Read more
Published 10 months ago by Paul A. Mastin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating walk through data that authenticates the gap.
Well written, authenticated detail that makes sense of a troubling crisis in our society. No easy solution but understanding the magnitude of the problem and how we got there... Read more
Published 23 months ago by sandra L. Owen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Academically and Sociologically Transformational
Academically, this book is one of the best researched and well written that I have ever read. Many academians want to speak to an issue, but not offer solutions. Read more
Published on March 27, 2010 by Kim
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful Book
This is a very interesting book written by a brother-sister team who are experts in the education field. Read more
Published on February 7, 2010 by Patti Chadwick
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